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(continued) wish you and your husband the best of luck in building your new home. Posted by Thomas Moen: Rebecca, that's good advice from Nick. You do need those tools. If you are looking for tools that are specific to straw-bale building, then you need these four tools: • Straw-bale needle. It's like a big sewing needle, but about 3 ft. long, for threading all kinds of things through the bales. • Chainsaw. For cutting the bales. • Weed whacker. I've seen people use these to "clean up" the bales. Funny sight. • Three-pound sledge, for pounding rebar into the bales. I've seen people chuck rebar into a drill, too. Not the cordless, but a big '/,-in. one that plugs in. If you go to the bookstore or library, you will find a few books on the subject. The special tool requirements of straw-bale building are always covered. Painting the exterior of old houses Posted by S. Pearson: This spring, I will paint the exterior of a 1924 Minneapolis bungalow. It has clapboard siding and probably has several coats of existing paint. I don't know if the previous coats are latex or oil base, but I would like to apply new latex paint. I will do all necessary prep work, but would like to avoid sanding down to bare wood. Will latex paint adhere and set up well over a previous coat of surface-prepped oil-base paint? Posted by Fred L: If the substrate is sound, clean, dry and rough, and you apply acrylic paint in good weather, it will stick. Posted by Bullet: The new latex paint will adhere to the old oilbase paint. It will also crack and peel if the old paint underneath it is not sound. A paint job is as good as the prep work. Posted by james DuHamel: One important thing to keep in mind is the old paint that is sti ll on the surface. Because you are in all actuality applying paint to the surface of the old paint, make absolutely sure that the old paint is stuck for good. If you can flake it off now, it will flake off after paint is applied, too. Pro painters use more than just a scraping tool to remove old paint. Old, flaking paint is a bad surface for applying paint to. Pro painters use (in addition to scrapers) sanders, planers, power scrapers and heat guns. The more old paint you can remove, the better. I personally try to remove ALL old paint. I replace any boards that have holes or cracks, and I repair any areas that will allow water penetration into the wood. Water penetration into wood equals flaking paint in the near future. Too often, homeowners do improper prep work even though they spend a lot of time and effort. There is way too much conflicting info about prep work, except for the basic phrase "proper prep work is critical." They find themselves trying to determine the best paint to use, the best prep steps to use and the best application methods to use. These all can vary from job to job and from region to region. In my area, a properly prepped house painted with a premium-quality paint will not need a new paint job for at least ten years, and I have seen many go 15 years. If you find yourself having to repaint every two or three years, then something is terribly wrong. Most likely, it was in the prep stage. Posted by Barry E: Just remember while you are doing all that sanding and scraping, you are dealing with lead paint. Take precautions. You may want to check with your city, but at the very least use a respirator and plastic ground cover. And keep the children away. Posted by j.R. Anderson: I'm planning on repainting my house this spring and was wondering if pressure-washing the peeling paint would do more harm than good. If pressure-washing would be worthwhile, would I have to follow it with a sander? Posted by jim Power: Very bad idea, for a lot of reasons. First, pressure washers will shred the wood of your siding or trim. Sure, some loose paint will fly off, but so will the softer part of the wood grain. I have been trying to restore an old farmhouse that was pressure-shredded. You can easily trace every movement of the wand. Second, you will be injecting a lot of water into the wood. The chief reason that paint fails is moisture inside the wood. New paint will not adhere if there is water trying to gas out. It will be pushed off. Third, the pressure of the jet stream will find cracks in the siding or seams around windows, and it will infiltrate at a tremendous rate. Any insulation that has been lovingly placed will be wadded and shoved out of the way, not to mention left to soak for weeks. Hello, mold and mildew. Finally, there is no decent way to collect the shreds of paint (probably lead) after they have been launched by water pressure measured in four digits. I know it seems tedious to remove it any other way, but trust me, pressure-washing is not the way to go. Posted by james DuHamel: I have to agree. As a professional painter (among other things), I can tell you from a pro's standpoint: Don't do it. Stripping paint with a pressure washer is nothing more than a bad shortcut. Ditto on all the reasons stated above about water penetration, wood shredding, etc. Look at ads for pressure washers. They will never show you someone stripping paint off old houses with their product. They know better. Proper prep work is tedious, slow and painstaking. As much as everyone hates to do it, it is a must if you want a proper, longlasting paint job. As for the question about sanding AFTER pressure-washing, the answer is most definitely yes. You will have to sand because the wood will fuzz up. Then you'll probably have to scrape the loose paint that comes loose a day or two AFTER you pressure-washed anyway. 20 FINE HOMEBUILDING